Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai

Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai

This is a very warming, touching book about family interactions, moments of happiness and moments of sadness all intertwined together to become what life is, a series of events, sometimes good, sometimes bad, what comes, comes. What is gone is gone just like the snail mentioned in the book that was found by the characters at times but only to lose the pearl again where the cycle repeats itself. This is a story that informs us about the ups and downs in life and how everyone faces it differently. To do so, the author cleverly uses true realistic characters to portray this

Set in India’s Old Delhi, CLEAR LIGHT OF DAY is Anita Desai’s tender, warm, and compassionate novel about family scars, the ability to forgive and forget, and the trials and tribulations of familial love. At the novel’s heart are the moving relationships between the members of the Das family, who have grown apart from each other. Bimla is a dissatisfied but ambitious teacher at a women’s college who lives in her childhood home, where she cares for her mentally challenged brother, Baba. Tara is her younger, unambitious, estranged sister, married and with children of her own. Raja is their popular, brilliant, and successful brother.

When Tara returns for a visit with Bimla and Baba, old memories and tensions resurface and blend into a domestic drama that is intensely beautiful and leads to profound self-understanding.